3/31/2024 0 Comments Png linkedin logo flat"By cloaking policies that hurt workers in language that says they're helping workers, corporations are making it sound like what is down is up," said Minsu Longiaru, senior staff attorney for PowerSwitch Action. Koonse and other authors of the report said the ballot initiative is disingenuously framed as a push to reform PAGA and bolster other enforcement mechanisms. PAGA plays a "vital role" in bringing bad actors into compliance, said Tia Koonse, legal and policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center. The report argues broadly that eliminating workers' ability to pursue private lawsuits would leave them more vulnerable to having their wages stolen by employers and other abuses of their rights. you can hold your boss accountable," Bautista-Perez said at the news conference. "It is important for other workers to see that. Through their PAGA claim workers secured a $1.75-million settlement. Workers were made to travel long distances between campaign offices without pay, were not given lunch breaks and were terminated abruptly, Perez Bautista said, speaking at a news conference last week to unveil a report by the UCLA Labor Center as well as researchers at advocacy groups PowerSwitch Action, and the Center for Popular Democracy.īecause the workers had signed arbitration agreements, without PAGA they would not have had the legal standing to take Juul and the nonprofit it created for the campaign to court. The workers were all classified as independent contractors rather than employees, which saddled them with expenses that employees wouldn't have to pay. Luz Perez Bautista and her mother, Maria de la Luz Bautista-Perez, were among three named plaintiffs who sued Juul Labs Inc. in federal court in 2020 for allegedly misclassifying some 450 campaign staffers working on a ballot measure the company was promoting to allow the sale of electronic cigarettes in San Francisco. Worker advocates have long complained that chronic understaffing at state agencies responsible for investigating employee complaints means that allegations about wage theft and other violations can take years to be resolved. Workers end up getting less money after a long legal process than if they had filed complaints through state agencies, the initiative's proponents say. The ballot measure also would weaken the state's already strained system for enforcing workplace laws, the researchers say.īut the business coalition backing the ballot initiative, called the Fair Play and Employer Accountability Act, counters that the labor law has resulted in a proliferation of lawsuits that small businesses and nonprofits have little ability to fight. Labor researchers say that the ballot measure, if approved, would harm employees, particularly people with low-wage jobs, by taking away their ability to file what are essentially class-action suits against employers that allege labor law violations.
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